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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290486">Not A Crime</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractwatercolor/pseuds/abstractwatercolor'>abstractwatercolor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>80s AU, Alternate Universe - Footloose Fusion, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Dancing Is Not A Crime, First RPF, Gen, I guess?? if you count "I simply do not vibe with this dumbass law" as punk???, IDK I'm going with it, M/M, Neither Is Being Gay, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pastel Dan Howell, Pastel Dan and Punk Phil, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rebellious Phil Lester, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:07:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23290486</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractwatercolor/pseuds/abstractwatercolor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan is a preacher's son with an angel face and lots of secrets. Phil is the new kid in town who doesn't know the rules. Together they change a town.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chris Kendall/PJ Liguori, Dan Howell &amp; Chris Kendall &amp; Phil Lester &amp; PJ Liguori, Dan Howell/Phil Lester, Phil Lester &amp; Kathryn Lester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Not A Crime</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Phil Lester loved to dance.</p><p>Whether or not he was actually any good at it was another question entirely (And a question most people who knew him generally agreed the answer to was <em>no</em>, but they all agreed to never say it to his face). He spent a good amount of time tripping over his own feet doing day-to-day activities. His attempts at dancing bordered on an actual hazard to his own health.</p><p>Phil knew he wouldn’t exactly be on any dancing competitions any time soon, but he didn’t care about that. Dancing was fun and it made him happy, and that was what mattered. Especially on a night where even hitting the club with his friends felt bittersweet and heavy. It was those memories he clung to as he trudged out of his house for the final time, the last of several boxes full of his belongings balanced on his hip.</p><p>“Ma, where are we gonna put this stuff? I can hardly close the trunk and the back seat is full!”</p><p>“Phil, don’t start,” his mother sighed, as though the issue of space was entirely due to him being unhappy to move  --  which Phil <em>was</em>, but it wasn’t like he could somehow rig the car to be stuffed or anything.</p><p>“I just—”</p><p>“Look,” his mother cut him off, her hands suddenly smacking down onto the hood of the car, “It’s not like I want to leave either, Phil. But we don’t have any choice. We both wish things could stay the way they were. We both wish your father wasn’t gone.”</p><p>Phil bit his lip, stung by the mention of his father. He had missed his dad even before all this, but with bills starting to roll in and his mother’s employer no longer in business, they couldn’t afford to stay in the house his parents had bought before Phil came along.</p><p>Slowly, feeling very guilty about all his previous complaining, Phil found a spot in the floorboard that he could squeeze the last box into. When he straightened up and turned to her, Ma suddenly looked very small and very sad.</p><p>“Ma…”</p><p>“And,” she went on, hands firmly on her hips, “We both wish I could become one of those strong single moms who’s suddenly self-sufficient, but I’m <em>not</em>.”</p><p>If Dad were still with them, she wouldn’t have to worry about providing for Phil all on her own. Slowly, he opened the door to his little blue Beetle  --  a gift from Dad  --  and slid into the passenger seat.</p><p>“Feel free to disagree,” Ma grouched teasingly as she got in and started the car.</p><p>“It’s a ten-hour drive,” Phil shrugged, “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”</p>
<hr/><p>In all Phil’s seventeen years, he had never visited the small southern town where his aunt and uncle lived. His mother had always complained that it was too stuffy, too provincial, and that she would be happy for her sister to visit them but she wouldn’t go back, come hell or high water. That she would return now, for the sake of stability, made Phil wonder if she had ever truly meant to stay away forever. He was dozing with his head against the window when his mother nudged him.</p><p>“Look, child, here we are,”</p><p>Phil jolted awake with an incoherent mumble, adjusting his glasses just in time to read a sign next to the road, proclaiming “WELCOME TO BOMONT!” in big white letters. Innocent enough, but he couldn’t help the wave of dread that rolled over him when he realized this was really happening: He was moving to this little nowhere town his mother had hated, and he would be stuck there until graduation. Oh boy.</p><p>When the Beetle rolled past the sign, Phil imagined the sound of a jail door slamming shut. Dad had always said he was dramatic.</p><p>Auntie Sandra and Uncle Jerry were kind enough. Phil didn’t really know them well enough to have a solid opinion of them, but they were nice enough to offer Phil and his mother a place to stay when they needed it, so it wasn’t like Phil could complain. Auntie Sandra hugged him as soon as he walked in, and somehow managed to make him feel like he was being squished despite being half his height.</p><p>Uncle Jerry didn’t seem like the hugging type. He mumbled a quick “Hello Kathryn,” nodded vaguely in Phil’s direction, and slipped out the door to start unloading the car. Phil followed him out as soon as he could wriggle out of his aunt’s grip.</p><p>His uncle was pulling a box labelled <em>Phil’s Stuff</em> from the trunk when Phil reached him.</p><p>“We only have one spare room, by the way,” he said, passing the box to Phil before grabbing another, “Sandy and I figured your mom would need a proper room more, so you’re gonna be in the attic above the garage. Garage is attached to the house, so really you just have to go down the stairs and through a little breezeway to get to the main house.”</p><p>Phil wondered distantly if he looked as thunderstruck as he felt. Ma had told him Bomont was rather simple, but did they really expect him to sleep in the <em>garage?</em></p><p>Uncle Jerry glanced over at him, and rolled his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, boy. We’re not tossing you out on the street. It’s insulated, and wired with electricity. You won’t freeze to death come winter or anything. You’ll just have to come into the house to eat and use the bathroom.”</p><p>Well, that would be just <em>delightful</em>.</p><p>The attic bedroom, as it turned out, had already been furnished with a bed and a desk with a chair. It had large windows and unpainted wood making up the walls and floor. Phil could even move around the support beams that stood at the sides of the room where the roof slanted.</p><p>“It’s rather quaint, really,” Ma said when she came up, her voice too bright and chipper to not be forced, “Nice and airy, and you’ll have all this space to do whatever you want with. Sandra told me she and Jerry are fine with you decorating however you want, so you can just… have fun with it.”</p><p>Phil had promised himself he was going to try to be positive, but at that, he couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. “Loads of fun, yeah.”</p>
<hr/><p>Two days after the Lesters arrived was their first Sunday in Bomont, and Phil was forced to wake up at an entirely unreasonable hour. Sundays in Bomont, according to the three Bomont natives he lived with, meant going to church. Now, Phil wasn’t exactly opposed to the concept of a deity  (He had, when Dad was sick, done rather a lot of praying, even if it hadn’t really helped much), but the idea of getting up at, in Phil’s humble opinion, the ass-crack of dawn just to go sit around with the rest of the town so God could take attendance for who gets into heaven sounded like a rather stupid idea.</p><p>“God and I have an understanding,” he grumbled as he poked sleepily at the plate of freshly-made eggs and bacon his aunt had plopped in front of him, “I agree to believe in him so long as He agrees to let me sleep in on Sundays.”</p><p>“Don’t blaspheme, Phil,” Aunt Sandra scolded, swatting him gently on the head with a dishcloth, “Everyone goes to church on Sunday. That’s just the way it is. And if you’re going to be living under our roof, you’ll be living by our rules.”</p><p>Phil was highly tempted to point out that, as his bedroom was in the garage, he technically wasn’t living under her roof, but something in his gut told him not to push his luck so early in the game. So he finished his breakfast, put on the first collared button-up he could find and his least-wrinkled pair of jeans, and reluctantly trudged out to Uncle Jerry’s truck.</p><p>Church was crowded and busy and, as Phil had dreaded, very social. As his mother had grown up in Bomont, her return made her (and him by extension) the talk of the town. She and Aunt Sandra were surrounded almost immediately by chattering ladies in fancy hats, and Phil just barely managed to follow after Uncle Jerry after he maneuvered his way out of the crowd.</p><p>A few minutes after they arrived, a man emerged from a small room off to the side of the small, raised stage, and the clustered of talking people gradually dispersed and settled into the pews. The man took up his place behind a wooden podium on wheels, fiddling with a sheet of notebook paper in his hand.</p><p>“Good morning,” he began jovially. He sounded, Phil thought, as though he was simply starting a conversation with a friend rather than speaking to pretty much the entire town.</p><p>“Good morning, Reverend,” echoed everyone but Phil and his mother. Glancing towards her, he saw her sat with her hands in her lap, eyes focused on the preacher, stiller than Phil had ever seen her.</p><p>“I took the long way to church this morning,” the reverend continued, “I walked from home, and I found myself looking at the world around me and thinking how good our God is, to give us such a peaceful and beautiful world to live in. And how we must all show our gratitude by being as kind to each other as the Lord is to us.”</p><p>Murmurs of agreement rose from the crowd surrounding Phil. He saw several heads nodding assent, as though the preacher needed some positive reinforcement to go on preaching.</p><p>“That was a well-timed message for the Lord to whisper to me today. Because this morning, as I’m sure you all know, we have two new souls joining us, just arrived from up north.”</p><p>Phil felt more than saw his mother rising to her feet, and he felt a flush of embarrassment already flooding to his face. He stared down at his hands, and whined softly as she tugged gently at his arm. She tugged again, glancing down at him, and he stood reluctantly, wishing that the floor would somehow open up and swallow him whole.</p><p>“Ah yes, there you are, hello,” the reverend said pleasantly, “Everyone, this is, of course, Kathryn Lester and her son…” he glanced down at the paper in his hand, “Philip?”</p><p>“Phil,” he corrected instinctively under his breath.</p><p>The reverend’s head cocked to the side, like a confused dog “What?”</p><p>“Phil,” Everyone’s eyes were on him. Please, oh <em>please</em>, let him just dissolve into nothingness right now!</p><p>“Speak up, son. Let the Lord hear your voice.”</p><p>“Phil,” he said again, and this time his voice carried across the quiet room, hushing the rustles of movement and soft, whispered exchanges between everyone else. “Everyone calls me Phil.”</p><p>The preacher seemed unbothered by Phil’s addendum to his introduction, and he offered a warm smile. “Well, Phil, you’re very welcome here. May God keep you.”</p><p>That must have been some sort of signal in small town speak, because his mother immediately sat back down, pulling him with her.</p><p>For the rest of the service, Phil let himself zone out  --  Standing and sitting as his mother’s prods directed, bowing his head when everyone else did, and only tuning back in when he heard the sound of a single voice.</p><p>At the front of the room, at the foot of the stage, stood a boy. He was about Phil’s age, maybe a bit shorter, in a baby blue dress shirt and white dress pants. His voice was high for a boy, but sweet in the reverent hush of the church. And his face was just as beautiful as his singing, round and sweet, with dimples showing faintly in his cheeks as his mouth moved, a mass of brown curls and huge dark eyes.</p><p>As casually as he could manage, Phil tilted his head close enough to get away with a whisper. “Auntie Sandra, who’s that?”</p><p>“Him? Oh, love, that’s Daniel. Reverend Howell’s boy.”</p><p>At that moment, the song ended, and the boy  --  Daniel, the preacher’s son  --  looked out at the crowd and smiled. That smile thumped into Phil's heart like a dodgeball to the chest. And in that moment, all he could think was <em>Well, fuck.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So yeah uhh.... this is the first time I've ever written RPF, and I'm not sure yet how good I am at it. For disclaimer purposes, I'm making no assumptions about the IRL Dan and Phil's relationship, just writing a little thing inspired by their online personas and dynamic. Have fun and don't be weird, kids! Lots of love to Sierra, who encouraged me to write this, visit me on Twitter at "abstractwtcolor" and please leave some feedback because it makes writing so much more fun when you know people are actually reading it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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